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Shane MacGowan's in pretty good shape, considering. His eyes may have a permanent out-of-it glaze, even when he's relatively sober, and perhaps he looks a little stockier than the battered, bleeding 18-year-old punk who once graced the cover of Sounds, but he's a tall man and can carry it.
The teeth of course are evil-looking - the front ones have rotted down to stumps - but you always had to brace yourself before looking at his mouth. His skin, though, is remarkably clear and unlined, and there's no sign of balding. He looks a good ten years younger than, say, William Hague.
`Don't talk about drink. No really, DO NOT talk about drink,' his manager warns. It hardly ranks as one of life's great surprises anyway, a musician drinking too much, but stories of his excess over the years are legion. His preferred tipple these days is Martini, a bit of a sissy's drink by anyone's standards. Unless you drink it by the pint - as MacGowan does - in which case it's very very hard indeed.
He's agreed to tell me his life story, but it's been a long day, and the promotional chores are taking their toll. He shuffles into the pub, two hours late, wearing a demoralised looking jacket and incongruous sports shirt. He's greeted by various blokes at the bar, then immediately ushered through to the other side of the pub, where they're shooting the video for the forthcoming single, Lonesome Highway. You get the impression that this pub, Filthy McNasty's in Islington, is home to Shane. All of his recent interviews have taken place here, and the walls are festooned with his discs. `Well, I am its main benefactor,' he explains some two and a half hours later, when he's finally free to do the interview. He's vaguely antagonistic throughout, but his dislike of journalists is well-documented. He's a writer himself, after all, generally regarded to be one of the finest songwriters and lyricists of his generation. Articulate and alert, he notices everything, checking the tape-recorder is still running and remembering what he was saying after frequent interruptions.
Later, one of his friends says his `reeling drunk' interview persona is for when he can't be bothered to do an interview. A frequent occurrence. His hold on reality is occasionally a tenuous one (he claims he could read and write when he was two - when he read My Fight For Irish Freedom by Dan Breen), but he can hold forth on any subject.
Shane McGowan was born on Christmas Day in 1957 when his parents were visiting relatives in Kent, and was brought up in a farmhouse in north-west Tipperary. `I had a deliriously happy childhood, until I was six - running around in the fields, having a great time, chasing cattle and working on the farm. I was given Guinness and Baby Powers (little bottles of whiskey) at a ludicrously early age, and then we moved to London and it was a fucking pile of shit until I was old enough to screw and go out and get pissed. Of course I preferred Ireland to being bullied shitless at school. That's why I spend so much time there now.' A precocious child, Shane won a scholarship to Westminster public school (`It was policy to let in some rough every now and again'), but was expelled at the age of 14, after being busted for drugs. He then worked illegally as a shelf-filler, a warehouse man, a maintenance-man at the Indian Embassy, and, inevitably, as a barman. By the time he was 18, drink had become a major feature, and he spent six months in detox. Once rehabbed, he became involved in the punk scene, and formed his first band, the Nipple Erectors, (`stupid name') later abbreviated to the Nips.
He was working in a record shop on London's Hanway Street at the same time. `I was happy again. Every now and again, the shop would fill up with people and I'd be rushed off my feet, but I can't really whinge about it: getting paid to listen to records. It was better than working on a building site or being a mini-cab driver.'
One night, when Shane was moonlighting with Spider Stacy's band, the Millwall Chainsaws - they played Richard Strange's Club Futura - they decided to play some Irish rebel songs in front of an audience of New Romantics and squaddies, who wanted to give them a good kicking. Chaos ensued, and the Pogues were born.
Initially called Pogue Mahone (Gaelic for kiss my arse), their name was diplomatically shortened and they were signed to Stiff Records. Shane's prodigious songwriting talent emerged and, between 1984 and 1990, The Pogues released five albums. The first three, Red Roses For Me, Rum, Sodomy & The Lash and If I Should Fall From Grace With God, are regarded as classics, merging the rawness of punk with Irish poetry and sentimentality. These were folk songs that had nothing to do with chunky-jumper- wearing weird-beards.
But eventually the lifestyle that fuelled their songs also brought about the band's demise. Shane was frequently `indisposed' while touring. Manager Joey Cashman recalls: `We seemed to shoot ourselves in the foot at every given opportunity. We didn't so much tour the world as fall around the world.' At this time, Shane was reportedly taking 50 tabs of acid a day.
`Alright it's true, but it was a long time ago. Anyway, once you go over a few tabs that's it. It doesn't have any further effect. And you get used to it, you can function on it. But very few people have the constitution for it. I was surprised that I had. But I was dying to leave the Pogues. I begged them to let me leave for ages, but they depended on me, and emotionally blackmailed me. When I did leave, it was like, Whoopee! Fucking freedom at last.' But now the stories that Shane, without the `discipline' of touring, was about to peg it any second, gathered momentum. `What a load of old crap that was. Once I turn 40, I'm really going to start laying into anyone who mentions drink or death,' he shouts, getting all aerated. `It has nothing to do with anything. I'm a musician!' He looks like he wants to kill someone. Gulp. Suddenly he catches sight of some cakes on the bar, left over from the earlier video shoot. `What are those things?' he demands.
`They're dessert things, eclairs and apple slices, Shane,' replies the barman. `Apple slice!' His face lights up for the first time today. `Pass us an apple slice.' Immediately two huge plates of cakes are placed before him and he tucks in with relish. It comes as a shock to see him eating - and it's not a pretty sight as bits of cake fly out on to the table, accompanied by David Cronenberg-style squelchy noises. `Today I've eaten vegetarian sausages, lentils, kidney beans and mashed potatoes,' he announces.
He seems to be surrounded by people tending to his every whim. On the one occasion nobody is around to take the phone from him after his girlfriend rang, he shouts `Shop!' several times (the typical call for service in western Ireland.
`I'm used to flattery,' he says. `It used to get on my nerves, but his autobiography with journalist girlfriend Victoria Clark, but anxiously points out that he's still a working musician. `I've been a solo artist for five years, I've got a great band and this is a great album.' The Crock Of Gold is a series of drinking songs: comic, poignant and rich in characterisation. His second solo album has been a long time coming, but it's worth the wait. `The best album I've done since If I Should Fall From Grace.' He plans to move back to Ireland one day. `Obviously I'm not poor, but I'm not in a position where I can move back and do a gig in the local pub every night. That's what I'd like to do. Shoot back to London whenever it got a bit dull.' So if he had to choose between music and drinking, what would it be? `Music of course. I'd give up drinking for music. I love music.' And with that he stands up, shakes hands, downs a half-pint of Martini and with careful, deliberate steps, takes his usual seat at the bar.
Shane MacGowan's new album, The Crock Of Gold, is released next week.